


Rescue

by RobNips



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Disasters, Friendship, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-07
Updated: 2015-04-07
Packaged: 2018-03-21 17:51:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3701275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RobNips/pseuds/RobNips
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Series of drabbles. Avengers saving Avengers</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I just like friendships. Ships if you want to squint throughout

Steve burst through the wooden door to the Lord's bedroom, taking it off its hinges in his hurry towards the bed. Clint had taken care, or still was taking care of all the security downstairs, but Steve focused on his part in the plan.

He launched his shield towards the man on the bed, looking hungrily down at the figure on his sheets. The soldier followed up by promptly tossing the yelling man out his third story window.

"Natasha?" He asked breathlessly towards the strewn sheets and blankets on the bed, tanned skin peeked out in some places with bright red strewn across the pillows. Steve gently placed a hand on her bare shoulder as a warning, the redhead's breathing heavy and her eyes unfocused. "Natasha, look at me."

The assassin blinked as if she just realized where she was. "Paralytic." She breathed. Steve clenched his jaw and snorted out a breath of anger.

"It's okay." He told her, though most to himself. "We're getting out of here." He moved around the bed to wrap her up loosely in a white blanket, gathering her in his arms. Steve carried her bridal style, Natasha's head resting on his chest as he jogged throughout the mansion. Old paintings and chipped wooden halls made the place look too sophisticated for what happens in the bedroom. "Barton!" Steve barked through the main staircase. "I got her. Let's go."

* * *

"Hold on!" Clint shot back at him through the com, picking up his fight in the kitchen. Man, these fucking guards were everywhere, no wonder this guy hasn't been straight up murdered yet. Hides behind a wall of bodies. Which Clint was literally giving him, right then. "Almost done!"

He shot another arrow point blank from where he perched on the counter top, swinging his bow around to smash another agent in the face. The last one was out of his line of sight, Clint knocked an arrow and loosely tugged on the string as he rounded the corner.

The attacker's plan of shooting him from behind only half worked.

Clint spun as he heard the shot, things tending to seem like slow motion. His back tightened and locked.

The string tensed.

Slow breathing.

Exhale.

Relax the hand.

Time continued and the arrow shot itself through the last one's chest, seconds after the bullet ripped through his calf.

"Fuck!" Clint cursed and shouted. Steve crackled through the com again. "I'm alright."

* * *

"That didn't sound like it." Steve scoffed, continuing his path on the gravel driveway to the car. Natasha flexed her hand.

"Clint-"

"He's fine." Steve told her, looking over his shoulder as they reached the car. Natasha wheezed, he took it as a laugh.

"He's lying."

Clint burst stumbly through the main door, following Steve, trail to the car. The bullet was in and out, he felt it. Pants were soaked, blood running down his calf, but he sprinted down the gravel, blood staining some of the rocks.

Great. First mission, and a party, and Tasha addicting the rich guy, and Steve doing the actual hero shit while he's stuck in the car like a watch dog. Fucking Hydra leanings and kidnapping and he really hates his job.

He nearly collapses into the back of the van they have, Natasha sitting up in the backseat with a blanket over her chest. "Relax, dumbass." She rolled her eyes when Clint frowned at her state. "You idiots got there before anything fun could happen."

"Right, fun." The archer scoffed, the van moved below them. "Don't mind my lateness, just saving you. Again."

"Should I put up the separator?" Steve grumbled from the driver's seat.

Clint scoffed and sat up, leg resting on the seat while he's on the ground. He'll take care of that later. "Next time?" He looked between Steve and Natasha. "I get to seduce the rich guy."


	2. Cold, Part 1

Clint really hated the cold.

Snow, he was fine with. He could deal with cold cars and slippery sidewalks and some snow so heavy the block streets for a day or two. Below freezing temperatures, no signs of life anywhere, and quickly gaining nightfall? Not really his thing.

After successfully blowing whatever he needed to up and put to hell, he made the mistake of letting some idiot half blown up himself follow him, plant a few rounds of bullets right in the right places in the plane he needed to get out of this shit storm. By places, he means the small ship itself along with the pilots.

He never liked the part of his job where it said leave others behind if needed, never liked it all. But he climbed over the blood-soaked pilot seats to bang the radio a few times, cursing when nothing would even turn on.

He looked out the window to see gas spilling onto the pure whiteness of the snow, the archer shook his head, turning to the two dead pilots. "Sorry boys." He said quietly, as if not to wake them up. Either way he was rummaging through their pockets, finding a few magazines and even some kind of protein bar. "We'll try to be back for ya." He promised, looking for a crash pack. Only one was riddled with bullet holes, but still had some sort of functioning sleeping bag, little food and flare gun.

He dragged the pack with him out of the plane, snow falling lightly to the ground around him. The sun was high in the sky, though covered by thick clouds. Next town was nearly a hundred miles out, take him at least three or four days to get there with just him. Clint wrapped himself up in his coat's hood and started trudging through the snow.

* * *

They say that cold could become a state of mind, after hours of walking through feet of snow, Clint's starting to think it's bullshit. Balls deep in half frozen water, more blowing all around you with the weight of equipment on your back is not just a state of mind. This is his hell, screw all the fire bullshit, at least burning to death would be quicker than freezing.

He takes slow steps, falling through the snow each time he took a step. Wind howled around his hearing aids, thankful for the plastic to not get as cold as the metallic buttons on the edges of his coat. A good coat, but won't keep the could out as long as he needed it to.

The snow in the wind swirls into shapes he has to blink away, pass out as just tiredness and not real things. Nature wouldn't play with him that much already. He could finally see the sun, sinking between the clouds to cast some light on him. The warmth doesn't do much, only gives his cheeks temporary hope at warmth before the wind bites at him again. Night will not do well. The night brings more cold and animals that know this terrain. The night brings confusion to where he's going and whether it's his hearing aids that are ringing or just his ears.

The night brings temporary slow in the onslaught of cold wind, quickly falling snow. It's quiet some now, Clint concentrates on keeping going south. South to the town, south to safety. South where it'll be warm with phones where he could call Tasha and listen to her call him an idiot for not staying put. That wasn't the plan anyway, but sitting with rotting pilots in a non working plane would be worse than dying alone trying to get somewhere.

He just had to go south. See the lights of a town like that one stupid book they made him read before him and Barney booked it. The one without color until the kid somehow finds Christmas or whatever. Clint barely understood it and he doubt he'd get it now. But see the lights of a town with hot showers and coffee and beds that don't have bullet holes in them.

Just keep moving south.

* * *

He decided to keep moving through the night instead of stopping. No shelters where he could see, and the longer he lasted the closer he would get to the town. The snow picked up probably somewhere around midnight. The wind blowing, ringing in his ears that made him turn down his hearing aids just to not go crazy with the wind. Step by step he had to keep moving forward. His hands curled around the inside of his coat, trying to block the wind and snow from reaching his core.

His hands weren't supposed to shake as much as they did now. His hands were steady, choosing the right paths to make bullets and arrows fly true, straight to their targets. Cold shouldn't bother them, wind shouldn't make them shake. Perhaps he just needed rest.

He moved on though, ignoring the howling that sounded less like wind and more like predators. He turned his hearing aids back on just in case. His ears, as usual, deceived him in the realm of depth perception. The howling was one hindered percent to signal him, Clint himself just didn't know where the hell it was coming from.

He found out soon enough when the wolf was bounding up behind him.

Clint grabbed it by its throat with one hand, the wolf pinning him to the ground. The other hand searched for the handgun in the pocket of his coat, firing three bullets into the wolf. He shoved it off of himself, taking a minute to just sit in the snow. His feet really ached, realizing how tired they really were did not help him in standing up. More howling came, of course there was a pack.

His shooting didn't help either. Clint put his gun back, taking out his bow with his quiver locked on his back, he slid off its cap to knock an arrow. He made it five minutes of walking before he heard another one behind him. Clint spun to loose it, sinking right into the animal before another pounced on his back. He let out a shout before trying to spin, the wolf on his back luckily unable to bite through the pack. He grabbed an arrow and tried to gut the wolf himself before another bite sunk right into his thigh. He let out a scream of mostly surprise before shoving his arrow into the wolf's chest, kicking the other off of his leg. With his gun he shot more than was necessary into the beast.

Clint panted, lying in the snow as it fell over him, dead wolves littered the ground. He took in deep breathes, puffing out silvery mists of air with each of them. His leg pulsed as blood started to soak through his pants. He gave in to his own senses and took the pack off his back, digging through it to find the first aid kit. Pathetic bandages, real thin gauze was all that was left. He tied it as tightly and as thickly around the wound as his could, sitting for a few moments more.

The wind blew the lid of the first aid kit shut, Clint moved to put it back where it belonged. He stood, gathering up littered arrows of the wolves and putting them back in his quiver, watching the sun rise to his left as he started making his way south again.

* * *

Eventually the severity of the bite caught up to his brain, giving a pulse-pounding pain whenever he put the slightest amount of weight on it. The sun was high again, leg limping and slowing him down more than he could afford. After hours of walking and cursing and leaving a sloppy blood trail in the piling on snow, his stomach complains.

"Fuck it." He cursed to himself, throat raw from breathing in the cold air. He sat again, feet aching and leg giving up with the rest. Clint pulled out the protein bar from before, the package dry with someone else's blood that he did not care to notice. Frozen chocolate with gross granola filled him up either way. He needed strength, he ate some of the near frozen apples in the bag as well.

Just fifteen minutes, he told himself. Fifteen minutes and he'll get up again. He made true to his promise this time, forcing himself up, using his bow as some kind of crutch to make his leg happy. As happy as it could get, anyway.

* * *

It was hours after, many hours in fact, before he saw some opening of a cave.

Not even a cave, it figured. A hollowed out ice creation, a little gift from Jesus or Buddha or Allah whoever. The sun set quickly as he made it to the cave, wind finally being blocked by the ice. His hands were nearly black with the cold, pant leg soaked with red as the bite in his leg pulsed through his whole body.

His ears were nearly blue, hearing aids around them only highlighting the silence behind the wind. Clint shoo his head, running numb fingers through his hair before throwing the hearing aids away. He liked the complete quiet, the wind wasn't evident anymore and the silence made sense and now even if thousands of wolves were sneaking up on him right now he didn't care. He wanted to sit and hide and not care.

Only an hour. He scolded himself for thinking too much. Only an hour. An hour of rest and then he'd get up and walk through the snow and get to the stupid town so Natasha could yell at him. Only an hour.

He leaned against the wall of the cave, letting his fall closed. Only an hour.

* * *

His biggest mistake was even fooling himself. The sun was coming up again by the time he opened his eyes again. He couldn't feel the numbness in his legs anymore, his fingers needed constant reassurance that they could in fact still curl into a fist. His head pounded as he sweated, no doubt from his leg.

His mouth hung open dumbly as he forced in freezing air. His hands shook as they looked nearly black from the bite of cold, skin hot but freezing in the center. His body was too confused, legs and arms numb but still moveable, insides churning awkwardly as he forced himself to sit up.

His bow lay next to him faithfully, as if Clint thought it would walk away with his luck. The archer groaned as his leg protested, pulling himself up by using the bow as a crutch. It was covered in ice, awkwardly bending after holding Clint up for nearly a day and a half now.

Clint just laid there when the bow snapped in half, leaving him falling to the ground. He didn't try to give up, he didn't even mourn his bow breaking right in half in front of him. His legs were tired, his hands numb and feet dead to the world and his head hurt. His leg pulsed, bleeding again as he tried to move the first time. His back ached, ears picking up nothing around him, so he just laid there.

He closed his eyes again, ignoring the wind picking up around him, louder than it should have been. He ignored the hands over him, pulling him over to lie on his back as people touched his face, pulled him over something and lifted him up.


	3. Cold, part 2

Clint wasn't usually late like this.

At least, not without clear warning that something went wrong. A small note from him to her, usually through the private line, letting Natasha know he might be delayed a day or two. It was never a whole day past check-in where got nothing from him.

"I'm looking for him." She stated matter-of-factly, crossing her arms in the pilots wing. They knew of her bite, but most were laughing.

"No way you're gonna get a team to go all the way to fuckhouse nowhere to look for someone who's not even missing yet, Romanoff." One of the pilots shrugged unsympathetically. "He's not even a day past past his check point."

"Exactly." She shrugged casually. "He's a day and an hour past his check point. The book calls for investigation within the 24 hour to 48 hour mark. You don't get a plane booked to go down there in the next half hour and you're suspended." She smiled politely, turning on the balls of her feet. "You know how these things go."

* * *

Natasha sighed when she saw the half-preserved-by-cold body on the ground by Barton's plane. The two dead pilots, empty fuel tank and missing survival pack was clear enough what happened.

"Maybe he just snapped finally." The pilot offered, standing still in the freezing plane, wind roaring outside. Natasha didn't even grant him with seeing her eye roll.

"There wouldn't be as many bullets that missed if it was him." She sighed, shoving her hands in her pockets. She looked to the pilot expectantly.

He groaned. "We have to go back out again, don't we?"

"What do you think?"

* * *

Hundreds of miles of pure bleak snow was not easy to track someone in. With the combination of a storm, Clint being a day and a half ahead of them, and more snow covering his tracks, it will be harder.

Natasha had made the pilot turn on all spotlights, giving light to the dark terrain and perhaps giving themselves away to Clint. All that was found were ice caves and a wolf or two.

They eventually stopped for the night, much to Natasha's annoyance. They turned back to the town, gathering fuel for the plane and testing for the night.

* * *

She sat perched on her windowsill, a thin silhouette casting across the floor of the hotel room. The only light came from the bar sign outside her window, a flurry of snow falling to make her shadow seem to have dancing going on behind it. She dressed warmly, the cold from the window seeping into the room without a prominent heater.

She sighed, pressing her head against the glass. She's dragging the damn pilot first thing out of bed in the morning, first chance she gets. Natasha understood, she wouldn't want to look for someone who had got themselves lost out here either, but it's not like they had a choice anymore.

Clint was still out there, no one having seen a man that looked like he'd just hiked a hundred miles through the snow. Must be freezing, wind chilled. He's always hated extreme terrains. The snow would not be good for him, even if he escaped the original mission unscathed. Clint was never ordinary, but nature never took pity on extraordinary men trying to survive.

Plus, it must be ten times worse to those who weren't trained in Russian winters.

* * *

She stayed true to her word, dragging the pilot out of his bed at the crack of dawn and making him fire up the plane. The storm had died down more, but a light snowfall traced the winds. Lucky for it, too. They would have never spotted the bloody pack of dead wolves in the middle of this tundra without mostly clear weather.

"He's been here within the last day." The pilot observed, lowering the small plane close to the ground, standing over the carcasses. "Surprised he didn't take it for the meat. Better than nothing."

Natasha stayed quiet for a few moments, moving the snow around the evidence over. She sighed when a blood trail was clear. It moved west. The idiot got lost in the small battle. "He turned. Went the wrong way after he fought them off." She ran a hand through her hair. "At least we know which way to go now."

"Good." The pilot scoffed, turning to go back to the plane. "Sooner we find Barton the sooner we go home."

The redhead snapped her head back to spit venom at the pilot. She was done, done with the stupid ass man who thought this wasn't worth his time. Thought Clint wasn't worth the effort of finding. "Then go home." She spat. "Go on, walk. I'll take the plane, it should be only four or five days to get back in the snow." She crossed her arms, the pilot seemingly frozen at the sudden threat of leaving him out in the cold. "I'm waiting."

"Fine!" The pilot held his hands up in surrender, going back to the plane. "Let's just go, before it starts snowing again."

He didn't say another word for the trip.

* * *

"There."

After hours more of covering miles of snow, any tracks Clint might have made covered up by more white, there was finally a sign. Not a very good one, but a clear line of red coming from a carved out ice cave. Fresh, not enough to think it's bled out but enough to get her attention.

Natasha barely had enough time to sprint off the plane to see the archer's now snap in half, sending him tumbling. "Clint!" She shouted involuntarily, some curse of surprise from the pilot before he went to get a blanket.

She skidded to a halt, on her knees next to a Clint that didn't even realize she was there. He was pale but sweating, lips nearly blue and fingers almost black from the cold. "Oh, Barton..." She turned him over to lie on his back, hearing some labored breath. But her focus was more on the blood soaked bandages on his left leg. Infection, definitely. Considering how far he got with a leg like that she was actually impressed.

"Here." The first word the pilot said in hours was spoken as he laid out a blanket next to the archer. They both dragged him by the coat onto the blanket, using it as some kind of gurney to carry him back to the plane.

* * *

They started a IV with a medic over the radio, tried to keep him in the warmest part of the plane. A few hours before they got to the nearest city with a functioning hospital. He regained some color by then, still unconscious as they got him checked into a room. They got his leg stitched back together, antibiotics to fight infection. Didn't wake up until three days after they found him.

Natasha took it as a win either way.

"Hey," She greeted softly, seeing the archer blink sluggishly awake in the bed. Clint immediately locked eyes on her, like wondering if she were real or not. "You're okay." She assured.

He swallowed thickly, hand moving to squeeze the thigh that was ripped open and letting out a silent sigh. "Yeah." He nodded, sinking back into the bed. He stayed quiet for a long time, not uncommon after four days days of fighting nature and then three more of fighting a fever. "Thank you." He whispered.

Natasha nodded, leaning close like she was telling a secret. "Don't ever try to be Bear Grills again, ass."


	4. Sewage

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A real short one, but I reference this mission between Clint and Natasha all the time.

"Pickup's in ten minutes." Clint sighed, hanging his legs over the side of the steep trench. Not the most beautiful of waiting places, but who expected to look for escaped assassins next to a sewage plant?

Natasha stayed standing, watching the night sky. "At least the stars are out, right?" She hummed. "You like those."

"When they're interesting, and not next to a hole that smells like literal shit."

The redhead smirked, tapping his thigh with her foot. "Not that different from-" she was cutoff in her teasing by the sound of a semi-automatic, and the bullets tearing through her back.

Clint immediately drew an arrow, searching the field around them. It only took a movement of black in the scenery to find the three strays, and take them out. Natasha had promptly lost coherent-ness as she rolled down the hill, right into the pool of waste they teased only seconds ago.

The archer groaned but slid down after the heap of Natasha, audibly gagging as he was waist-deep in the muck. Whatever this water contained seeped into his boots, hardening almost around his toes. Every movement caused a squelch of something and the smell intensified, seeping through his nose until he felt like throwing up. The waste leaked through his clothes, gross and warm and squishy and everything that was evil in the world.

"Tasha!" He shouted futilely, rummaging through the sewage before finding a piece of hair that was still red, unlike the rest of her. Coated in muck, he dragged her top half out of watery-type things, and hoisted her up in his arms. Clint dragged them both up the mountain, hearing her breathe and a hand on her pulse as the helicopter finally came into view.

"You so owe me for this one." He mumbled, free hand strapping his bow of his back, and wiping the dirt off of her. Four sources of blood, all coated in thick black stuff, that seemed to slow bleeding if anything else. Though infection's gonna be a bitch.

Meds came pouring out of the landed helicopter, taking over as they controlled bleeding without whatever was clogging the bullet holes before. Clint stayed next to the drop off, glaring as Coulson smirked at him. "I expect a raise." The archer demanded. "And less shittiest-places-to-be-picked-up-at, okay?"

The agent looked to him, then his partner. "Shower first." Was his demands, leading the younger man back to the chopper.


	5. Collapse

The building was coming down. And it wasn't going to be easy.

She was just supposed to be doing a favor for Pepper while the woman was sick, a little deed that Natasha liked to think gave her some credit towards being seen as a regular person. Just give Tony some files he left at house. Nobody's perfect. Pepper was sick as a dog, unable to literally wait on Tony and get anything he needed, such as said files.

Which led to Natasha going up to the office, attempting to give Tony the paperwork with minimal banter, and ended up with some villain or other firing missiles at the building. In turn, the building being how it was, started falling on its side, the missiles blowing the lower floors to hell.

The whole office was sliding down the now vertical plane, crashing loudly through the windows and into the street below. Natasha grabbed onto a doorway, watching nearly helplessly as desks and filing cabinets and light fixtures slide to the windows. Glass shattering and falling like rain down to the street. The redhead clung to the molding to fight against gravity pulling everything down.

Screams echoed through the building as people slid across the floor, Papers flying as Natasha reached out an arm with a grunt. A secretary yelled from the other side of the door frame, their fingers brushing against each other. "No!" Natasha let out as the woman clawed desperately for her hand but slipped right from her. She let out a breath that was half hoarse.

Natasha watched helplessly as the woman crashed through the glass below, screaming as she flipped out to the open air and fell, with nearly fifty stories between them and the ground. Natasha closed her eyes, kicking the wall her legs were dangling against. The redhead shook her head, hearing more yells coming from above her as debris plummeted through the offices and ripped holes through the walls to allow people to fall through. Her watch beeped, signaling someone was already on their way for them.

"Stalin!" A yell cried louder, closer to her, and Natasha whipped her head around to see Tony dangling from a bar that used to support a glass wall.

"Stark!" She yelled to him as an acknowledgment to him, maybe fifteen feet above her. The billionaire clung to the thin lining, glass shards still clinging to the small line of plaster that used to be the frame of a glass wall. Natasha remembered it, separating Tony's office from the one next to him, Pepper told her something about how whoever used the other office would always request a new one within the weak. Tony hated neighbors. "I'm coming, stay there!" She twisted her hands on the door frame to hoist herself up.

Some late glass and plaster fell around them, Natasha saw Tony look up just in time to see a piece of debris land itself right on the thin plaster already bowing with Tony's weight, snapping it in half completely. The genius let out a long and lou curse as he slid against the vertical floor, flailing for Natasha but the assassin was already too far away to reach out for him.

"Romanoff!" He screamed as he fell, looking forward, a support post feet in front of him. Tony let out a shout of pain as he slammed into the now-horizontal post, force of the fall making his elbow crack from landing on it and slamming his head into the post.

Natasha heard the crack if his arm as it snapped, flinching as his head smacked against the very thing keeping him from falling hundred of feet. "Stay there!" She shouted to him again, the billionaire holding his humerus in pain.

She took a breath, balancing herself on the frame of the door. The assassin scanned the area below, seeing a desk that was bolted down to the table about ten feet below her door. Tony was another fifteen feet below that. Natasha braced herself before leaping from the door, slamming into the desk as it's drawers sid open and closed as the building creaked around them. She groaned in pain from her hip landing against the sharp side of the desk. Nasty little bruise that will end up being, but she didn't have time to bitch and whine. She leaped again, landing hard on the post that Tony was supported by. "Are you okay?" She asked calmly, brushing off a piece of glass next to her.

"Of course not!" He barked, holding his arm close to his chest while the free hand went up to his head. "I feel like throwing up."

"I don't suggest it." She looked up, seeing the other offices above them mostly clear of anything too dangerous that could fall on them now. Besides more glass. "We might have to wait a while. People know we're here, but focus will be on civilians. Can you call the suit?"

Tony looked as if he zoned out, looking to the broken windows below them that led down to the streets. "No." He answered, breath heavy as glass and plaster and debris falling, hundred of feet down the street. Falling lifelessly to hit the ground with people screaming around it as other's fell to their deaths. So many people dying, falling so far, so far, almost like from the sky, with him doing /nothing/ to help, nothing to stop them. Stop skulls cracking on the ground, blood coming from ears and eyes as  _every bone_  would crack against the pavement-

"Tony!" Natasha grabbed his shoulders and Tony jumped back on the beam, realizing how hard he was breathing. "You're okay. I promise. Call the suit, we will be fine."

"I can't." He forced out, sucking in a breath as if water was about to surround them. "I can't- I can't call it, can't do anything-"

He jumped again like he forgot he was talking as Natasha's hand grabbed his chin. Forcing him to look at her. As calmly as a monk she spoke as if the world depended on it. "What's the function of the Black Scholes model?"

"What?"

She repeated herself easily. "What is the function of the Black Scholes model of Economics?"

"What the  _hell_ -" Tony blinked, shaking his head at the seemingly random question. But he looked up and saw her calm look, as if she were just curious. Andit came back easily as ever. "It prices a derivative based on the assumption that it is riskless and that there is no arbitrage opportunity when it is priced correctly."

The redhead actually cracked a small smirk. "Perfect. Tell me why you can't call the suit."

He forced out an even breath, free hand going to wrap around his wrist, the rest of his arm pulsing with the break. "With a disaster like this, phone lines are filled, all services are probably down by now. And unless someone can rebuild the entire system I'm not getting any signals out to anywhere."

Natasha let out a curse, hands curling into fists. "Well, nobody's completely perfect."

* * *

Natasha ended up having to calm Tony down only two more times, the thought of falling to his death once again being a trigger did not surprise her. They sat for hours, Natasha keeping the calm even though the building creaked around them, threatening to split yet again. But it kept hold, wedged between the remains of the lower half of SI and leaned against another building next to it.

And whenever Tony looked down she forced his chin up again, breathing with him and letting him squeeze her shoulder when the pain in his arm flared up again. She distracted him by letting him bitch about how starving he was considering Pepper couldn't make him breakfast and he hadn't eaten all day, sitting up here and waiting for someone to come and get them. Lights flashed below them from the ambulances and police forced. The smoke kept rising to the sky, sun setting around them.

The broken building stayed lodged in the sky, Tony leaning against her shoulder and keeping his eyes closed. The wind picked up around them, both of the adults clinging to each other as they heard the God-given sound of Thor swinging his hammer to come up to them.

The God landed gracefully on the desk Natasha had pounced from hours earlier, smiling at the two. "All areas civilians were said to be are being taken care of as we speak." He landed gently on the beam, holding out a hand. "We may return to safety, my friends."

Natasha nodded to Tony, a silent agreement he'll be going with Thor first to the ground. The God quickly returned to fetch Natasha, their own little ambulance waiting to whisk them away to the hospital.

"Hey, Stalin." Tony poked the assassin with his foot as medics splinted his arm, ambulance roaring through the packed streets and rocking them. "Thanks for only letting me freak out horribly once."

"Well," She sighed, smirk on her face while the medic dabbed the cut on her hip with alcohol. "Nobody's perfect."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I like Natasha calming Tony by asking random questions that he would know easily.


End file.
